Implementation fact of HRD Ministry schemes related to Minorities
Ministry of HRD
Govt of India called the annual general meeting of National Monitoring Committee for Minorities Education which was
held on 06-01-2014 at Manekshaw Center Ashoka Road, Delhi Cantt, Dhaula Kuan
New Delhi.
I would like to
express my views after going through agenda of meeting and HRD ministry action
taken report on minority’s education I found that on many suggestions HRD
Ministry has not taken any action and many core issues was skipped from the
agenda. No doubt Government of India introducing many schemes for the
development of minorities in education, but the ground reality is totally
different. Therefore I rose following issues along with my suggestions in meeting
for the consideration.
Problems faced by the minority group in the several states of
India
I have
personally come across a few problems faced by minority group in several states
of our country, for the same I put my suggestions for consideration:
1.
Scholarship/Fund
issues:
·
The allocations of funds in recent budget for educational development of
minorities are insufficient to cater to
the needs of the minority society.
·
Chairperson of Jharkhand state minority commission
said some education institutions are not giving scholarships to their students
and another common complaint is that the banks are not sanctioning loans to the
minority communities. These problems / grievances need to be looked into.
·
Pre-matric scholarship fund should be increased.
·
Proportion of Muslims being selected in the Jawahar Navoday a
Selection test is EXTREMELY LOW! Fee of Rs. 200 per month is exempted for SC /
ST / physically handicapped in class IX to XII. As per Sachar report Muslims
deserve exemption too!
·
There is a special Scholarship Scheme for
Kashmiri students under Prime Ministers Special Programme. Its implementation
is not proper and effective and the benefits are not reaching to the Target
Group of Poor and Needy Students.
·
Ministry of HRD should support Minority
affair ministry to give the same benefit of scholarship to the minority student
as it is given to SC/ST student.
2.
Minority
participation in Government body:
·
Low
participation of minorities in policy making body. I would suggest educationists
/ intellectuals and social activists are included in Central Advisory Board of
Education (CABE) and other such bodies under HRD Ministry, this will benefit
the community in the long run to put their problems forward.
3. Madrasa issues:
·
Amazing enough to note that on one hand Government of India seems
very keen on granting aids to Muslim run educational institutions, especially
Madrasas and Maktabs, in the name of quality and modern education. While on the
other hand, very recently Allahabad High Court struck down the minority status
given to the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) by the HRD ministry and declared
the decision of 50% reservation of seats to Muslims in AMU's post-graduate
medical courses as illegal. So I request to kindly retain the minority status
of this University.
·
After the announcement HRD ministry is keen to open AMU center or
campus in different parts of country for minority, I am greatly surprised how
minorities can be benefitted when the AMU is not having its minority status? I
would suggest either open campus of minority Status University or open new
minority Status University.
·
Nowadays many students from madrasa are studying in JNU, Jamia
Millia Islamia, Hamdard, Aligarh and other universities and these Universities
are accepting Madrasa degree then why can’t other universities accept madrasa
degrees too? I request you as the patrons of the above mentioned universities
which accept madrasa degree, to support and propose that the HRD Ministry
should instruct all the Universities to accept Madarsa degree and give them
admission for further studies.
·
I would suggest that the patrons of UP madrasa board HRD ministry
should form central madarsa board at national level as optional choice not make
it mandatory.
·
The annual budget of
IDMI (Infrastructural Development of
Minority Institutions) coming under HRD Ministry should be increased to
Rs.500crors and grant of Rs. 50 lacs should also increased to 50 lacs to one
cror and it should be also sanctioned and disbursed directly by the union HRD
Ministry instead of giving fund to state government.
4. Problems faced by the
Minority Community while opening Minority Institutions are:
·
While opening a Minority
institution in any state of India the Management faces endless harassment. The
authority asks the applicant to prove their minority character. The Ministry of
Minority affairs of the Government of India in all Scholarship advertisements
project Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs and Parsis as minorities. On this
basis the State Govt. should accept any institution opened by the organizations
belonging to these religions as Minority institutions.
·
During the process of
opening professional colleges, in this sector also the Minorities face a lot of
problems. First, in getting an NOC or ESSENTIALITY CERTIFICATE from the State
Govt. Secondly the State Govt. insist on Management surrendering 50% of the
seats to the State Govt., if they do not agree to this demand then they face a
lot of difficulties created by the Govt. Hence in this case also it is better
that the requirement of the NOC from State Govt. is removed particularly when
the State Govt. does not play any role such
as providing financial aid.
·
Several State Governments
issue Minority institution certificates only for a year requiring annual
renewal. This is a cumbersome procedure, in this regard instead of the State
Certificate the NCMEI Certificate should be taken into consideration.
·
The Sachar Committee reports that the quality of Urdu Medium
schools is very poor. The reasons behind this have to be worked upon; once a
problem is identified a solution must follow. Government must give PRIORITY
FOCUS towards QUANTITATIVE and QUALITATIVE improvement of Urdu medium schools.
They should get more hassle free access to facilities so that they can also
thrive and build a strong student community.
·
No Minority institution ever gets special support like Milind
College at Aurangabad which was started by Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar was given Rs.
2 Crores by Cabinet ministry of Maharashtra in the year 2008.These minority
institutions cannot survive on donations or charity alone, they should also be
considered for such Government grants
·
Government land is not usually allotted for school building
purpose to minorities therefore there is no availability of land for school
infrastructure. I therefore suggest in minority concentrated district Govt.
should either give land on lease basis for the term of 99 years or any other
alternate solution should be offered.
·
Not a single Minority found institution has yet acquired the
Deemed University status why? Again they need to secure a certificate from the designated authorities and here
the matter gets stuck as they have to face several hurdles.
·
In Gujarat,
the State Education Department issued a circular to the government aided
schools to subscribe to a Gujarati magazine, Sadhana, which is wedded to the ideology of the RSS and Sangh
Parivar. This is a direct violation of Article 26 of the Indian Constitution.
·
In
Maharashtra not a single school is opened under Model school scheme/SSA/KGBVs)
in any Minority concentrated districts.
·
SCHEME - Model School under PPP Mode instead of
scheme for English and Hindi Urdu should be taken wherever a demand for an Urdu
school is put up.
·
Due to population one school in block under Model School
scheme is not sufficient.
·
Opening
new schools in a city like Mumbai with current infrastructure pattern is
difficult because it is not possible to find an open plot in this city. Day by
day population is increasing but the number of schools remains the same. Supply
is much lesser than demand, so it is not possible to open new schools in a
particular shape or size. Also due to some height or CRZ limit barriers schools
are not able to load more class rooms on their building. I therefore suggest
special infrastructure plans should be introduced for a city like Mumbai. While
designing spaces for schools the criteria of playground should be removed and
the size of class and number of students should be given priority. Modern
design and architecture will offer multiple solutions and give a better
infrastructure as well as accommodate more students in a school.
5.
Admission of
Minority child in school:
·
In
many places I have personally observed that some institute is not granting
admission to the children belonging to minorities. This problem is specially
faced by Muslim students. I therefore suggest, under RTE Quota, a Quota for
Muslim students should be reserved.
This is for your kind information and
for necessary action. I Hope HRD
ministry will note down the mentioned issues and take prompt and positive
action on the above issues and obliged me.
With Highest Regards
